Defending his remarks on Narendra Modi's marital status, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that he did not make any "personal" attack on the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate.
"I just mentioned that in previous affidavits submitted by him (Modi) he had not mentioned something ( his marital status). I did not get personal," Mr. Gandhi said in response to media queries soon after filing his nomination papers from Amethi.
While addressing a rally in Jammu on Friday, Mr. Gandhi had attacked the Gujarat Chief Minister for not revealing his marital status in previous affidavits and only doing so while filing papers for the Vadodara seat.
His comments drew a strong reaction from the BJP, which warned Mr. Gandhi to desist from attacking Mr. Modi on personal issues.
Coming to her brother's support, Priyanka Gandhi, who along with mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and husband Robert Vadra accompanied Mr. Gandhi to Amethi, said he had only pointed out that "something was missing" in (Modi's) affidavit. The BJP had no moral right to talk about personal attacks, Ms Gandhi said.
Mr. Gandhi also dismissed opinion polls, which suggested a Congress loss, claiming that his party would better its performance of 2004 and 2009. He stressed that opinion polls had predicted a Congress loss in both the 2004 and 2009 elections but the party proved all predictions wrong by securing a win each time. "The same thing will happen this time also," he said.
Before filing his papers, the family, led by Mr. Gandhi held a road show from the adjoining Sultanpur district, where his cousin and BJP general secretary Varun Gandhi is contesting, covering a distance of 45 km to Gauriganj, Amethi headquarters.
As disclosed in his affidavit, the value of Mr. Gandhi's total assets has doubled to Rs 9.4 crore in the last five years. The value of his immovable assets, however, dropped since 2009.
In the last two elections, Mr. Gandhi has swept Amethi, a traditional Nehru-Gandhi bastion, with huge margins but his time around he faces the double challenge of the BJP's television actress-turned actress Smriti Irani and the AAP's Kumar Vishwas, who had been campaigning aggressively in the constituency.
However, expressing confidence he said he had a "family relation" with Amethi and would retain his seat with a "good victory."
While mentioning the development work done by him in Amethi, Mr. Gandhi said he had focused on three things: improving status of women through self help groups, developing a food park to help farmers and connecting the area with railways and national highways.
Amethi goes to poll on May 7 along with other key seats like Allahabad, Phulpur, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Gonda and Faizabad.
